New Tongs

New ones are on the left.  Had a little fight with the old ones, and they ended up with a crack.  I was going to taper the reins out on the new ones a bit more, but my arm got really tired and it was already an hour past lunch time. 

When your leather belt falls apart, come get one of these bad boys

http://www.etsy.com/listing/65889865/industrial-belt-15-inch-snap-belt

All leather belts have a lifespan if you wear them every day.  Especially the craptastic factory made ones most people on Etsy are selling.  We used to sell those, too, but got tired of replacing them when our customers told us they had fallen apart a month later.  So we went back to the drawing board and created the toughest belt of them all.

Also, my next door neighbor is a cow named Pancho.  He's really smart and you can walk him around on a leash like a dog.  If you say his name, he moos back at you.  So cute.  Just sayin'. 

Fireplace screen done

Finished this up a while ago.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, especially the rivets.  Now come get this out of my garage, Mom!  Just kidding, Mom. 

Fireplace screen almost done!

Finished it up last week.  Just needs to be sandblasted and then I'll heat and close the rivets.  Even the rivets are handmade.  Should be pretty sweet when it's done! 

Fireplace Screen

This one is for Mom and Dad.  They have been waiting years for this, I feel really bad about it!  It's going to be Arts and Crafts style.  Oh yeah, my favorite.

New business card holders

I haven't posted any blacksmithing for a while, so I thought I'd post a quick tutorial on how I make my new business card holders.  Alrighty then ...

First I start with a 2" piece of steel channel and cut it partway through the middle like so ...

I also cut some pieces of 2" X 3/16" flat bar stock (not pictured) to use as the backs of the card holders.  The next step is heating the pieces in my propane forge.  It kind of hard to see, but the metal in the picture below is red hot.  What I am doing here is quenching both ends in a can of water so that I can bend it in the vice without losing too much of its shape. 

 

 The key is in the quench - too little and the metal will deform and become a twisted mess, too much and the metal will be too brittle when I bend it and split instead of making a nice bend.  Here goes the bending.  You have to move pretty fast or you'll lose the heat.  I check my bend against a test piece while I'm bending it.  

Mmmkay,now that we have the bending done, I put everything in my finishing machine to remove all the scale and rust (lots of rust here in S. Florida).  Here's what they look like after a short run in the machine.  You can see the scale starting to come off.

Here's what everything looks like when it comes out.  A few of the pieces have a hibiscus motif chiseled into them, but that's another tutorial ...

Finally, it's time to join the parts together via the electric welder ... 

Voila!  Here's the finished product (well, after another couple rounds in the finishing machines and clear coat spraying):

 The business card holders are available here and here if you're interested.  Thanks for hanging out in my little corner of the art world!  Stay tuned for more new products...

Business card holders and containers

Another great organization I've been fortunate enough to work with is the World Steel Association.  Here are pictures of some business card holders with their logo hot stamped on them and some containers.  They give these items out as gifts to their contacts in the steel business.  They are working hard to keep the steel industry at the cutting edge in areas like sustainability, but they also help preserve the oldest profession in the steel industry, blacksmithing, by supporting artists like me.

These business card holders have turned out to be difficult little projects when you are trying to keep them all identical.  I have a new design that I will be posting up soon and I am working on more business card holders as well as containers, so stay tuned!